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Archive for the ‘Marriage Trouble’ Category

Zsuzsi Gartner-“Summer of the Flesh Eater” (The Walrus, September 2009)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Jeffrey Eugenides, Kirsty MacColl, Marriage Trouble, Neko Case, Short Story, Smarty Pants, The New Pornographers, The Walrus, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, Zsuzsi Gartner on October 13, 2009| 2 Comments »

walrus-99SOUNDTRACK: NEKO CASE-Middle Cyclone (2009).

nekoI first learned of Neko Case through The New Pornographers.  Their song “Letter from an Occupant” blew me away.  But when I’d investigated her solo work, I learned she was more of a country singer than anything else.  Reviewers said that Middle Cyclone broke from that mold a little into more rock territory.

I don’t know her early stuff, but I can attest that these songs are mildly rocking. However, it’s hard to take the country out of the singer.  There’s something about Neko’s voice on this disc that screams country (even as her songs get faster and more furious).  But, much like k.d. lang who won me over when she broke away from her country roots, so did Neko Case.

Rather than explicit country, Neko case seems to be filling in the shoes of the sorely missed Kirsty MacColl, another great singer-songwriter who melded genres like so much fondue.

Case never hits the manic intensity of “Letter from an Occupant” (she admitted on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me that her vocals were sped up for that song), but she proves to be a powerhouse singer.  And once I got over the fact that this album didn’t ROCK, I accepted that it was very good.  I don’t know if I have a favorite track, although I do like her cover of Sparks’ “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth.”

I finally managed to listen to the last track, “Marais la Nuit” all the way through on my lunch the other day.  It is, literally, 30 minutes of frogs and bugs chirping away.  It’s quite relaxing, but not really worth listening to all 30 minutes.

[READ: October 8, 2009] “Summer of the Flesh Eater”

The title is not misleading exactly, but it may make you think zombies are afoot.  But they are not.  (I debated about revealing this, but figured it would win more fans of people who don’t like zombies than lose people who do). (more…)

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Jimmy Gownley–Amelia Rules: The First Three Trade Paperbacks (2006)

Posted in Boredom, Broken Social Scene, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Dreams, Fantasy, Feist, Fiona Apple, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jeff Smith, Jimmy Gownley, Marriage Trouble, Set at School on October 12, 2009| 2 Comments »

amelia1SOUNDTRACK: FEIST-Let It Die (2004).

let itdieI’ve recently discovered Feist through Broken Social Scene.  I know that she is huge (and “1,2,3,4” is a really great song that we used for our son’s 4th birthday video), but it took me a while to catch on.

This first album (technically her second, but her first was released only on tour in 1999 and is out of print) is, to me, shocking that it catapulted her into fame.  Not because it’s bad, but because of what a strange amalgam of songs, none of which are indie rock, are on this “indie rock” record.  The opening songs are sort of mellow rock, but really they strike me as more of a mellow jazz or maybe torch singer-style.  And then there’s all that disco!

The exception is “Mushaboom” which is an amazingly catchy song that defies categorization, at least on this record.  It’s sort of folky but dancey and has an absurd but defiantly fun chorus.  After some folky bits and some jazzy torch songs, the disc morphs into something of a disco album.  Not modern R&B but actual 70’s disco.  I mean “Leisure Suite” sounds like it could be played in the background while men with thick mustaches lie in front of the fireplace with their woman of choice.  And then there’s the genuine disco song: a cover of the Bee Gees’ “Inside and Out.”

I was really taken aback by the disc because it was nothing like what I expected.  But once I got used to what the style actually was, I found the album really compelling.  Feist has a great voice. feist2 It’s seductive and very pretty. In many ways the disc reminds me of Fiona Apple (although I think Fiona has a stronger more interesting voice and a better selection of background instrumentation).

But comparisons aside, this is a really solid record, one that I have enjoyed many times.  Oh, and once again, the British cover is more interesting.

[READ: January 2007 (and earlier)] Amelia Rules

I first discovered the Amelia Rules comic at The Joker’s Child in Fairlawn, NJ, (one of my favorite comic book shops).  There was something about the art work…a weird amalgam of simple lines and computerized coloring that really grabbed my attention.  But it’s the story that kept me coming back.

Amelia is a young girl whose parents are getting a divorce.  Amelia and her mom move to a new town in the country, away from the city where she grew up.  She winds up spending time with her Aunt Tanner, a former rock goddess (and there’s a cool subplot about that later on) turned country recluse.

amelia2Amelia tries to make friends in the new neighborhood.  And the boys she hangs out with are Reggie (whose goal is to become a superhero) and Pajamaman (the one unrealistic character in the story, although he does achieve more depth than just the “weirdo who wears pajamas all the time” as the comic continues).  Amelia also gains a nemesis, Rhonda, who has a thing for Reggie but who is generally too cranky to do anything but snark about everything). (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999)

Posted in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Chris Knox, David Foster Wallace, Demons, Digression, Flash Fiction, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Infinite Summer, John Krasinski, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Meta, Record Labels, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Snapper, Straightjacket Fits, Suicide, Superette, Supernatural, The 3Ds, The Bats, The Believer, The Chills, The Clean, Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, Violence on September 29, 2009| 1 Comment »

hideousSOUNDTRACK: TOPLESS WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES soundtrack (2006).

topI learned about this soundtrack from a very cool article in The Believer (the beginning of which is online here).  In the piece, the author claims to have never seen the film (he was given the soundtrack by a friend) and he doesn’t want  to change his associations with the music by watching the film.  And now, I too can say I have never seen the film, and likely never will.  And I really enjoy the soundtrack too.

The soundtrack is sort of an excuse to showcase a bunch of bands from New Zealand’s Flying Nun record label.  Featured artists are The 3DS, The Bats, The Clean, Superette, Snapper, The Chills, Straightjacket Fits, and Chris Knox.

It’s nigh impossible to give an overarching style to these songs.  Even when the bands have multiple songs on the soundtrack, they are not repetitive at all.  Even trying to represent a genre would be difficult.  The opener “Hey Suess” is almost a surf-punk song, while Chris Knox’s gorgeous “Not Given Lightly” is a stunning ballad.  There’s a cool shoe-gazer song “Saskatchewan,” and some great simple indie rock (a bunch of other tracks).

The only thing these bands have in common is that they’re all from New Zealand.  And as with any large body of land, no two bands are going to sound alike.  Nevertheless, all of the bands fall under the indie rock umbrella.  It’s a great collection of songs that many people probably haven’t heard.  It’s worth tracking down for the great collection of tunes and, if all you know about New Zealand is The Flight of the Conchords.

[READ: September 24, 2009] Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

After finishing Infinite Jest I wasn’t sure just how much more DFW I would want to read right away (of course, seeing as how I have now read almost all of his uncollected work, that is a rather moot point).  But when I saw that John Krasinski (of TV’s The Office) was making a film of this book, I had to jump in and read it again.

Obviously, there are many questions to be asked about this film ().  Is it going to be based on all the stories in the book?  (Surely not, some are completely unrelated).  Is it going to be just the interviews? (Probably, and yet there’s no overall narrative structure there).  And, having seen the trailer, I know structure is present.  I’m quite interested in the film.  In part because I didn’t LOVE the stories.  Well, that’s not quite right.  I enjoyed them very much, but since they weren’t stories per se, just dialogue, I’m not afraid of the stories getting turned into something else.  The text isn’t sacred to me, which may indeed make for the perfect set-up for a film.

Anyhow, onto the stories.

The obvious joke is that the author of Infinite Jest has created a book with “Brief” in the title!  But indeed, many of these stories are quite brief.  Some are only a couple of paragraphs (which true, from DFW that could still be ten pages).  But, indeed, most of the interviews in the book are brief too (except the final one in the book, which is nearly 30 pages).   (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 13] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Adventure, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Edith Wharton, Eschaton, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Humiliation, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Morality, Neurotics, Oddities, Postmoderism, Racism, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Sports, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Universities, Violence on September 18, 2009| 2 Comments »

ijestSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Nurse (2004).

nurse

After the glorious Murray Street, SY return with an even better disc: Sonic Nurse.  This is probably their most overtly catchy (and therefore in my opinion wonderful) record since the Goo/Dirty period of 1991.  (Can it really be 13 years between these discs?).

This disc features Jim O’Rourke as well.  I’m led to believe that he has been playing bass with the band in order to free Kim up to do other things.  Although what she is doing I can’t really imagine.

“Pattern Recognition” opens with the most catchy guitar line in Sonic Youth memory.  Such a great and easy guitar riff.  Kim’s voice is sultry and wondrous.  And Steve Shelly really gets a chance to shine with some fun drum parts.  And, as is typical lately, the catchy songs get some lengthy end treatments, so this song ends with a 2-minute noise fest.  But it’s a good one.  “Unmade Bed” is one of Thurston’s special mellow-singing songs but the guitar solo is weird and wonderful.

“Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” was originally called “Mariah Carey and the…” (and I have no idea if the original was different).  Is one of those noisy Kim-sung jams that SY are known for. But it also features a “Hey hey baby” sing along chorus too.

“Stones” continues this midtempo catchiness with another amazing guitar riff that runs throughout the song.  While “Dude Ranch Nurse” is another mellow Kim piece that has a great riff and wonderfully noisy bridges.  And of course, Lee is awesome on “Paper Cup Exit,” yet another fatastic song.  The cool breakdown in the song is a nice unexpected twist.

“I Love You Golden Blue” may be the most beautiful song the band has ever done.  Kim’s voice is delicate and delightful as she whisper/sings over a gorgeous guitar line.  The final song is another of Thurston’s beauties: “Peace Attack” a slow builder, complete with verse ending guitar solos.

Sonic Nurse is a beuaty.

[READ: Week of September 14, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 949)

Flying in the face of potential spoilers, I was looking for any evidence of there ever being a “unedited Director’s Cut” version of Infinite Jest.  There is, supposedly, one copy of the full text floating around, and I’m actually quite surprised no one has tried to capitalize on DFW’s death by releasing it (I’d rather see that than another “This is Water” type publication).

But while looking around, I got this pleasant surprise from the Howling Fantods–these are comments on a first draft of IJ (without too much unpublished work shown).  But there’s also this disturbing (to me) item:

(N.B.: Wallace made numerous corrections for the paperback edition of 1997, so that edition is the one scholars should use. Put a Mylar cover on the pretty hardback and leave it on the shelf.)

Great. So I read the wrong copy?  Twice??

ijdot1
I haven’t said very much in any of these posts regarding DFW himself.  I don’t feel it is my place to comment on the man or his situation.   However, through a nice shout out to me, I found this really cool site: The Joy of Sox.  It’s primarily about the Red Sox but it has a delightful side venue in DFW information.  There’s not a ton, and he quotes extensively from others who have done more research than he–he’s a fan of DFW, but this is a sports blog after all.  But it is a delightful collection of miscellanea.  And he pointed me to this article, “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open“, which I had never read (so thank you!).   So, do check out the site, he’s not doing Infinite Summer, but he’s likely going to read IJ again in the fall.

ijdot1
As this almost-final week opens, the book is flying downhill like an AFR wheelchair, paralleling Gately’s literal inability to talk with Hal’s metaphorical? literal? we’ll see? one.  But it really is the Gately show.  We learn more and more about him, and his back story makes him more and more likable.  Who ever would have guessed? (more…)

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Maile Meloy–Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It (2009)

Posted in Ben Folds, Demons, Drinking, Infinite Summer, Maile Meloy, Marriage Trouble, Missoula, MT, Pregnancy, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Work, Yuck! on September 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

maileSOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-Stems and Seeds (2009).

benI enjoyed Way to Normal, although not as much as previous Ben Folds CDs.  I was listening to Pandora Radio at work and I heard a version of one of the songs from Way to Normal, but it listed it as coming from Stems and Seeds, which I hadn’t heard of.

Stems and Seeds is a sort of fan club release of Way to Normal.  That whole album is remixed, remastered and in a different track order.  It also features B-sides and the “original leaked versions” (ie. not real versions at all) of several of these tracks.

The second disc (actually the first disc) is a collection of audio files that you can upload to the GarageBand program where you can manipulate the files yourself.  I have not even popped the disc in the computer to look at this yet, and I don’t foresee myself doing it any time soon.

But onto the music.

The differences are not vast in the remixes and yet I like them better.  Some excessive bits are lopped off (the “Japanese doctor” voice before “The Bitch Went Nuts” is thankfully gone) as well as a few bits that dragged out “Free Coffee”).   I don’t think of myself as a massive audiophile, but in a side by side comparison the new songs (which are apparently uncompressed like radio-ready songs are) sound cleaner, brighter and just better.  (Which again, is weird since Way to Normal was released just months before this.  Why bother releasing that version at all, I have to wonder.)

There’s also something about the new track order that I like better.  It just flows more smoothly somehow.

And the bonus tracks are also fun.  There’s a live version of “You Don’t Know Me” from a pre-show at Conan.  They practice it without the curse in the lyrics, but they all get a hearty curse-laden shout out at the end.  The “leaked” tracks are also fascinating. Even though they are lyrically not quite up to snuff, they’re not that far removed from Ben’s sillier songs.  But it’s the idea that he wrote these entire songs just to jam the leakers is fascinating to me.  He wrote new melodies and recorded entirely new songs that aren’t real.  And yet now he’s officially released them and they are real. Trippy.

So, if you haven’t yet, skip Way to Normal and get Stems and Seeds. If you already have Way to Normal and didn’t like it, try a track or two from this one, it may turn you around.

[READ: September 13, 2009] Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It

In his Infinite Summer post Colin Meloy plugged the new book that his sister had just written. I wasn’t aware of the book coming out so I was pretty excited to hear about it.  I picked up a copy and finished it in like 2 days.

This is Meloy’s 2nd collection of short stories.

The characters in almost all of the stories are failures. Not losers, mind you, but failures. They have failed at jobs or love or with their family, and the storylines show them coping with the aftermath of their failures.  And note that the failures are never because of inaction, they are because the characters are stuck between two impossible choices or literally insurmountable problems. (more…)

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Periodical: The Week

Posted in Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Comedians, Comic Strips, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Esquire, Essays, Film & TV, Free Speech, History, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Morality, Music, Natural Disasters, Neurotics, New Yorker, Oddities, Outer Space, Political Humor, Prison, Racism, Radar, Religion, Research, Robots, Russia, Salon.com, Sex, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, The Week, Violence, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, War, WMDs on September 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

weekI’m not sure how I first learned about The Week. I think I received a trial issue in the mail. But after just one or two issues we were hooked.  The Week is a comprehensive newsweekly, although it offers virtually no original reporting.  It collates news stories and offers opinions from a variety of sources: newspapers, online magazines, political journals etc. And it provides opinions from across the political spectrum.

Each issue has the same set up (although they recently had an image makeover: a new cover design and some unexpected font changes in a few sections, which I suppose does lend to an easier read).

Each issue starts with The main stories… …and how they were covered. The first article is a look at whatever major story captivated the editorials that week.  (The growing gloom in Afghanistan).  And in a general sense of what you get for long articles (the long articles are about 3/4 of a page) You get WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE EDITORIALS SAID, and WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAID.  The What Happened section is a paragraph or two summary of the story.  The editorials offer a one or two sentence summary from sources like USA Today, L.A. Times and The Financial Times, while The Columnists are from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time.com, for example. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 12] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Bewitched, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Cheers!, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Summer, M*A*S*H, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Neurotics, Postmoderism, Ren & Stimpy, Seinfeld, Set at School, Short Films, Suicide, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Violence on September 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ijSOUNDTRACK: THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES-Don’t Know How to Party (1993).

mmbI’ve always had a thing for ska (although even I got sick of it when No Doubt took over the airwaves, thanks Gwen).  When ska gets added to blistering metal, well, it’s hard to resist.  And so we get Boston’s own Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

This was the first Bosstones’ record I’d heard and I fell for it immediately.  I also really appreciated the aggressively green plaid that the band sported at the time (although they have since denounced the look).

A horn section can be a tricky thing in a rock band, with many using it to very poor effect. But the Bosstones used it wonderfully, complementing the heaviness and adding a cool skanking sound to the metal chops. And the songs are fantastic and fun.  “Someday I Suppose” is just one of the great rocking anthems from the 90s.  “Illegal Left” is wonderfully catchy and funny.  And “Issachar” is just blistering punk.  These three songs show the rocking and skanking range on the disc.  All of this is wrapped around Dicky Barrett’s rough, growling, heavily-smoker-sounding voice.

The Bosstones would go on to write some hugely popular tunes after this disc (with each disc getting progressively more recognition and sales) but for me, this is what ska is all about.

[READ: Week of September 7, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 876)

Infinite Tasks drew my attention to a new comment regarding the Joelle timeline that we’ve been concerned about.  Greg Carlisle responded to it at Infinite Summer. And so Infinite Tasks updated an older post here.  I’m willing to accept Carlisle’s word as he did write Elegant Complexity after all.

And yet there’s another interesting time line issue that I bring up below about a chapter heading and an electronic calendar that Hal looks at.

ijdot1I’ve also decided that, since the story is steamrolling to an end, and since so many of the end days are coming along, I’m going to update my own calendar (but just the November info).  I’m putting it at the end of the post to include this week’s information.

In general, I’m a little bummed to see so many people have completed the book early, tempting as it is to do so (although obviously that’s better than not finishing at all, right?).  I’m nevertheless enjoying my routine and I think I’ll actually miss it when it’s over.

ijdot1

elizThis week’s reading is almost entirely focused on Gately in St Elizabeth’s Trauma Wing.  He is stuck staring at the ceiling which is breathing at him.  It reminds him of a holiday in Beverly, Ma in which the beach house that they rented had a hole in the roof. The hole was covered by a plastic sheet which flapped and pulsed with the wind.  His crib was placed under the hole and it freaked him out (although what is a 4 year old doing in a crib?  Well, Gately’s mom is clearly not the best parent.) (more…)

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Jessica Anthony–The Convalescent (2009)

Posted in Anachronisms, History, Jem Cohen, Jessica Anthony, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Neurotics, Short Films, Silver Mt. Zion, Sonic Youth, Threats, Violence, Wikipedia on September 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

convSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 6 Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui (2005).

syr6This CD sees Sonic Youth playing an instrumental background to three silent films from Stan Brakhage.  It reminds me of the Jem Cohen DVD in which A Silver Mt Zion play the music for the silent Cohen film.

Now obviously, we don’t see the films on the CD.  In fact, as far as I can tell it doesn’t even say which films they are (the credits are in Lithuanian).  So, it’s impossible to tell if the pieces are contextually good.

As for the songs themselves, there are three short pieces.  The first is about 25 minutes, the second about 14 and the last about 27 (even though the disc itself lists one piece at about 65 minutes).  The pieces are leisurely and very abstract.  There’s very little in the way of Sonic Youth in evidence: minimal distorted guitars (or much of any guitars).  Rather, there are effects, percussion and occasional vocals from Kim.  There are no hooks of any kind.  But then what would you expect from soundtrack work?

Unlike the other SYR discs which were all about improvisation, this one feels more like a composition: abstract, strange and a little disorienting, but a composition nonetheless.   I imagine that the films are dark and mysterious.

This disc falls in line with the style of SYR 4 Goodbye 20th Century.  If you’re not really sure about SY, but you like abstract soundscapes, this is a good disc to check out.

[READ: August 30, 2009] The Convalescent

I had read a sample of the book about a month ago and was very intrigued.  When the book came in the mail I was pretty excited to read it all.

But how to explain this peculiar book?  Rovar Pfliegman is a mute, crippled man who lives in a broken down bus on the side of the road–out of which he sells meat.  His meat is the cheapest and freshest in town so even though he sells it out of  a bus on the side of the road, he has many clients.

Pfliegman is Hungarian, specifically, he comes from one of the eleven tribes who migrated over the Ural Mountains.  (History records only ten tribes, and the word Hungarian stems from the word onogur, which means ten arrows.)  This eleventh tribe, the Pliegmans tripped over their own feet, growled at strangers, stole other peoples food and were generally outcasts even amongst outcasts.  As an example of the sort of tribe the Pfliegmans are, Rovar’s father after receiving a VCR in 1984 spent four minutes examining the buttons and one minute examining the manual before bashing it in the face. (more…)

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Lydia Davis–Samuel Johnson is Indignant (2005)

Posted in Black Sabbath, Death, Demons, Essays, Flash Fiction, Funny (strange), History, Lydia Davis, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Merzbow, Research, Short Books, Short Story, Sonic Youth on September 9, 2009| 1 Comment »

lydiaSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR8: Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth (2008).

syr8This final (so far) SYR release is another live recording and it sees the bands joined by saxophonist Mats Gustaffson and electronic wunderkind Merzbow.  This EP comes from the 2005 Roskilde Festival in Denmark (and the language is all written in Danish).  According to the SY website, the day before this, they had performed a set in support of Sonic Nurse. However, this set, “The Other Side of Sonic Youth” is an hour or so improvisation. It is basically broken down into 5 minute intervals:

1 min.  Kim (guitar) & Steve (drums) start
5 min. Thurston (guitar) joins
10 min. Lee (more guitar) joins
15 min. Jim O’ Rourke (bass/synth?) joins
20 min. Mats Gustaffson (saxophone) joins
25 min. Merzbow (laptop) joins
30 min. Kim & Steve leave
35 min. Thurston leaves
40 min. Lee leaves
45 min. Mats leaves
50 min. Merzbow finishes

All times are approximate, and even listening to the disc it’s not entirely clear when the new players come on (or when they leave). For the most part, the set is varying levels of noise and dissonance.  But it’s not just a wall of chaos. It starts fairly simply with the guitar and drums (although when Kim and Steve play it’s never really simple).  By the time Jim comes out, the band has morphed into all manner of sound scapes.

When Mats comes in and that saxophone starts squealing, it’s a whole new ballgame. I don’t find Merzbow’s entrance to be all that noteworthy, but by the end, when it’s just him and Mats (or him by himself) he’s doing some pretty amazing stuff.

It’s hard to imagine what the Roskilde people thought of this (although crowd noise seems to be positive).  This set was followed by Black Sabbath, which in and of itself is pretty funny.  Especially since the SY set seems far more dissonant.

[READ: September 6, 2009] Samuel Johnson is Indignant

This collection of Davis’ work contains fifty-six of stories.  The stories range from one sentence (!) to some twenty pages.

The book is disconcerting in that it opens with several of the one to two page stories, leading you to suspect that they will all be that length. Then, when you actually get to the longer pieces it kind of throws you.

Those first stories are I guess what you’d call flash fiction.  Except that for the most part, it’s hard to tell whether the pieces are even meant to be fiction.  They are aphoristic, often.  Talking about neighbors and friends, uncomfortable moments, and mostly, lots of thinking about everyday activities.  Some of them are funny.  Some of them are thought-provoking.  Some of them are just weird.  And some of them make you wonder why they were written at all, or more to the point, why she would name this collection Samuel Johnson is Indignant, when this story,consists of this:

“Samuel Johnson is Indignant: that Scotland has so few trees.” (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 11] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Canadian Content, Colin Meloy, Consumerism, Contests, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, David Lynch, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Eschaton, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Neurotics, Noir, Postmoderism, Set at School, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Sports, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Violence, Wikipedia, Work, Yuck! on September 4, 2009| 5 Comments »

dfwSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000).

nycIn the midst of all of the experimentation with the SYR discs. Sonic Youth released this “proper” release.

At the time, it was actually the impetus for me to stop buying Sonic Youth records.  Between the experimental discs and the expanding palate of 1,000 Leaves, it felt like Sonic Youth were sort of drifting away from rock altogether.  It was certainly a way to alienate fans of Goo and Dirty.

You get two two songs over seven minutes and three over five (there are two short blasts in the middle which add some heaviness to the proceedings). But for the most part, this is a very spare, almost atmospheric affair.

Prior to recording the disc, the bands custom gear was stolen.  So they started from scratch for this recording.  And that may have something to do with the ambient, almost spatial sound.  It is quite mellow, (although still angular and dissonant) with a number of spoken word/beat poetry vocals.

Whether it’s pretentious or artsy depends on your take for recited lyrics (and SY’s lyrics are inscrutable anyhow).  Although Lee’s piece “NYC Ghosts and Flowers” seems to fit the style best (he has done a number of spoken vocal pieces in the past).  And “Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)” has a sort of commercial appeal.  The closing tack “Lightnin'” even features a trumpet, which I assume is played by Kim.  It’s the most noisy piece on the disc, with all kinds of fun sound effects showing up.

I’ve been listening to this disc a lot lately.  I think because I’ve revisited the experimental discs, this one makes more sense.  It’s not what I’d call a typical Sonic Youth album, or even the best Sonic Youth album.  It is certainly their most jazzy/mellow experiment (especially compared to the noise of says the SYR discs) and is about as far from their commercial peak as they could get.

The strangest thing to me though is that, despite all of the experimentation and slow-building songs, the whole disc is under 45 minutes.  So, they aren’t just making noise to fill space.

[READ: Week of August 31] Infinite Jest (to page 808)

In all of the talk about DFW’s “psychic” abilities with regard to technologies, one thing no one has mentioned–that I’ve seen–is his love of Venus Williams. Her name keeps popping up (I’d say at least a half dozen references so far).  And in many ways one doesn’t think too much of it (she is the #3 player right now, bested by her sister Serena who is #2).  But the amazing thing about his embrace of Venus is that as venusof 1996, when the book was published, she had barely played any pro tournaments.

Look a these tidbits from Sports Illustrated:

October 31, 1994: Venus wins her first pro match, defeating Shaun Stafford at the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland. … Venus faces Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, the No. 2 player in the world, in her next match. Venus races out to a 6-3, 3-1 lead but then folds as Sanchez Vicario wins 11 consecutive games. In an interview after the match, Venus is asked how the loss compares with previous defeats. She answers bemusedly that she has never before lost a match.

May 22, 1995: Reebok announces it has signed Venus to a five-year, $12 million deal. Thus far, Venus has played in one pro tournament.

Although much has been speculated (by me and others) about when he was actually writing this book (and when he was able to send in last minute changes), she would not break into the Top 20 until 1998.  He clearly saw something in her.

ijdot1

I write these posts as I go along.  So, I read the day’s pages take notes and then type them up.  This is why I get moments of speculation in the posts.  But mostly it means that when I start writing I don’t know how much there will be in total.  This is now the second week in a row where the early reading started off, if not slowly, then certainly without all too much happening.  The notes I took were very simple, along the lines of: Marathe in Ennet House or Kate & Marathe talk.  I knew I could remember what they were talking about, but there wasn’t a lot of notable moments.

And then, we get the trifecta of Endnotes and Tine’s interview. Holy cow, a torrent of information flooding out at once.  It doubled my word count almost immediately. Phew.

ijdot1
As this week’s reading starts out we see Marathe trying to check into Ennet House.  Okay, actually he’s there as the final part of his recon looking for the veiled girl who was in the Entertainment and is now in rehab.

His new-eyes-looking-at-the-place is rather enlightening as I hadn’t realized just how dreary and drab the House is (nor just how weird most of the residents would be).  The supporting cast is in good form: some of them sleeping, some of them talking loudly, others just staring.  And Marathe takes it all in. (more…)

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